Gulps of algae air all in the name of science

WHEN Lloyd Godson was at university he had himself chained
inside a cupboard at the bottom of a swimming pool. "I had scuba
tanks," he said yesterday, remembering how he enjoyed the brief
experience.

Today, the 29-year-old producer of educational webcasts intends
to swim to the bottom of an Albury lake and enter a submerged steel
chamber that will be his home for the next 14 days.

To breathe inside his BioSUB he will farm algae, producing
oxygen as it grows while sucking up his exhaled carbon dioxide.

He believes it will be the first time anyone has lived
underwater dependent on algae for air.

BioSUB, about the size of a small caravan, boasts a bicycle he
can peddle to power his laptop and DVD player, and a bed and a
portable toilet. He will urinate into his algae bio-reactor,
providing it nutrients.

If the air gets too rank, he can peddle his bike to pump fresh
air from above.

Probably more anxious will be seven American students from
Cascade High School, Idaho, who built the bioreactor after Mr
Godson heard how they used similar technology to filter water in a
lake.

Their science teacher, Clinton Kennedy, in Albury with six
students, confessed the final version had not been fully
tested.

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